Recently, a friend asked me, “Would first-year you be proud of you now?” The question made me cry. Of course she would be proud of me.

Nearly four years ago, I arrived in a city and a state I’d never been to before. I came from a place wildly different from Yale, but so did most of us. I wasn’t naive or inexperienced. There’s a lot I learned in my hometown that I couldn’t’ve at Yale and places like it.

I graduated from an incredibly average American high school in rural-ish Washington, where football players and cheerleaders reigned, and most kids didn’t go to college, much less fancy schools like Yale. Back home, I learned to be a person outside of academic and career achievements, something I fear that many Yalies didn’t get to do before, or even during, college.

At Yale, I got to be a kid again. The first snow day, I had a snowball fight with friends and held a boy’s hand. I didn’t worry about how I would drive to work or take my mom to the hospital like I had during snow days the year before. I still worried and cared for my family, but I couldn’t be there to take responsibility anymore. I cried a lot, missing home and feeling insecure. I embroidered a blanket that represented a tree by the observatory that I often cried under. The falling leaves made me miss the evergreens of the Pacific Northwest. I cried walking down Science Hill after my first physics exam. I struggled in school and still do.

I told stories about my rural-ish hometown to mostly urban and suburban Yalies: lawn mower races at the Berry Dairy Days, working at McDonald’s, the grocery store’s trash compactor, Friday night football concessions, self-serve honor-system roadside corn stands. I shared about the annual Skagit Valley Tulip Festival and that my hometown grows the most tulips in the U.S.

Every year at Yale, I’ve chosen a day in April, the first day that feels like spring, to be Tulip Day, a day on which I buy a bucketful of tulips from the grocery store and hand them out to whoever I see that day, whether I know them or not. First year, I did Tulip Day because I missed home so damn much and I wanted to feel close to it here. The years since, I’ve done Tulip Day because I wanted to share a piece of my hometown, a piece of my heart, with friends and community at Yale. It’s become my favorite day of the year.

Yale indulged me and allowed me four years to think about the world and my place in it. Classes, dining halls, and butteries gave me the tools, time, and space to think, talk, and learn. I learned about the ways and places where others grew up and reflected on my own background. My experiences at Yale expanded the limits of my world and contextualized the places I’d been before. I admit I can be self-centered and perceive the world through main character syndrome, in that I narrativize the seasons of my life, but I think Yale encourages it.

So, what have I learned in college? All the cliche things — the world is bigger and more complicated than I ever knew — and friends make most things better. I wish I didn’t know some of the things I know now. New Haven landlords taught me that in a big city, landlords can do nearly whatever they want. I learned that if you’re competent and helpful, you’ll be taken advantage of and that institutions that pretend to care about you, often don’t. I worked for the federal government and almost committed to working there my whole career. Now, I’m real glad I chose not to. Our stories don’t fit neatly into marketable TV series with nicely wrapped up narratives and happy ever afters. It’s all messy and fucked up and beautiful.

Today is commencement — most of life is ahead but it’s the close of a chapter. I know my next step — I’m going to be a mechanical engineer working on wind turbines for GE Vernova — and I’m okay with what comes after being a mystery.

When I left for college, my dad made me a poster that includes a map and pictures of Skagit Valley, along with photos of my family around the edges. It’s hung above my desk everywhere I’ve lived. When I left the valley, I thought I’d be back as soon as I graduated. It wasn’t until late sophomore year that I realized that I could end up anywhere in the country, doing anything.

We’ve been blessed with opportunities few others are afforded. Windows into new worlds have been unshuttered. And while we have potential for incredible academic and career futures, I hope we can also find grounding and meaning beyond shiny achievements and certain visions of success.

In her first speech to us TD first-years, the iconic Dean Mahurin said, “Go to class and take the class with you.” I’ve taken that to mean, be true to yourself, but absorb and consider the ideas and people around you. I’ve learned to take the opportunities that feel honest and meaningful to me while finding joy in community, in relationships, and in giving out tulips on the first day that feels like spring.

Some part of me is still just a girl from Skagit Valley. This crazy, stressful, exciting place has changed me, but it’s also made me sure of who I’ve always been.

“Would first-year you be proud of you now?”

Yes, she would.

No matter where the first-year versions of ourselves imagined we might be now, I’d think they’d all be proud of us today.

AYA OCHIAI is a senior in Timothy Dwight College double majoring in Environmental Studies and Engineering Sciences (Mechanical). She plans to work for GE Vernova in South Carolina after graduation. She can be reached at aya.ochiai@yale.edu.